Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

or

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

The internationally bestselling book that inspired the Pay It Forward movement is now available in a middle grade edition.

Pay It Forward is a moving, uplifting novel about Trevor McKinney, a twelve-year-old boy in a small California town who accepts his teacher’s challenge to earn extra credit by coming up with a plan to change the world. Trevor’s idea is simple: do a good deed for three people, and instead of asking them to return the favor, ask them to “pay it forward” to three others who need help. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading across the world, and in this “quiet, steady masterpiece with an incandescent ending” (Kirkus Reviews), Trevor’s actions change his community forever.

This middle grade edition of Pay It Forward is extensively revised, making it an appropriate and invaluable complement to lesson plans and an ideal pick for book clubs, classroom use, and summer reading. Includes an author'snote and curriculum guide.

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 5 Up—Twelve-year-old Trevor is a caring young man who, through a school assignment, begins a movement of kindness through the act of paying it forward. Encouraged by his mother and physically scarred school teacher, Trevor endeavors to make the world a better place in the midst of perceived failure and exciting social notoriety. As with the original adult version, Hyde brings readers into the Clinton administrative years and the home and life of the protagonist. The characters are believable and likable and children are taken along on their journey as willing participants. An ambiguous ending allows kids to make their own decisions about Trevor and his future. A thoroughly convincing narrative that will have children questioning the label of fiction. Well worth adding to a library collection.—Elizabeth Speer, Cisco College, TX

Review

Richard Paul Evans Author of "The Christmas Box" A good read and an inspiring novel; fascinating in its implications. Catherine Ryan Hyde joyfully delivered me from "if only" to "what if?" to "why not?"

"Chicago Tribune" Powerful...with believable dialoque and shadings that make the characters seem more lifelike than they have any right to be.

"Catherine Ryan Hyde accomplishes a very difficult job, with an easy, beneficent wisdom about the ways of the world."

"The story is a quick read, told with lean sentences and an edge. . . . Hyde pulls off a poignant, gutsy ending without bathos."

"The philosophy behind the book is so intriguing, and the optimism so contagious, that the reader is carried along with what turns out to be a book that lingers long after the last page is turned."

"If the success of Harry Potter suggests that many of us yearn for magic, Hyde's book delivers an even more profound vision of what it may be: the simple magic of the human heart. . . . "Parents should read this book with their children. Non-parents should read it with someone they love."

"[An] entertaining and inspirational tale."

"Pay It Forward"--a book poised to become a phenomenon--is a well-designed confection that author Catherine Ryan Hyde has executed with abundant skill. If you ever had a yen for the utopian, you will have a sweet time with this heartfelt fable."

"[A] fascinating idea . . . well-written . . . the characters are interesting and complex and flawed and real. . . . "Pay It Forward" will get you thinking outside of its pages, as few books do."

Top customer reviews

This is one of my favorite stories and I am happy that it came out in a Young Readers Edition. I teach 5th Grade and the original movie is just on the edge of being able to watch it with my students. This book will definitely be on my "Read Aloud" list this year. It is so heartwarming, with a message that will stay with you for a long time. Trevor is such a likable, no nonsense kid, with a big heart. His plan seems so simple, yet, as adults, our learned skepticism fills us with doubt and our faith in others is minimal. This story becomes our inspiration to our Genius Hour projects, inspiring kids to make a difference in their world today. No idea is too small or too simple, it just takes a strong heart and mind to make it happen. I would recommend this book in any classroom. Our students are our future and this book is a powerful influence for students to make it happen.

I can't write much right now. I'm crying and I don't want to stop right now. It just seems right.

THAT is how amazing this book is. I usually write about how talented THIS author is, how she makes me actually become the characters. I speak of her uncanny ability to make me feel their feelings, see life through their eyes.

Today, I simply say that I felt it in my heart. For that, I'm grateful to her. She made me believe.

I watched this movie when it came out many years ago, and loved it. The book is similar of course, but even more powerful, even more filled with appreciation of diversity and human understanding, and different enough that I couldn't be sure what to expect. Shifting narratives threw me now and then, trying to remember which characters were which, but they precisely fulfilled the author's intent of broadening the story through multiple perspectives. I've loved every book I've read by this author (which were included with Kindle Unlimited), so finally broke down and paid for this one. So glad I did! I've "been intending to begin" doing some charitable acts (not just donations), but this book, which touched me deeply over and over, has inspired me to get off my a$$. I will not only begin doing that ASAP, but will also start my own "pay it forward" chain! Catherine Ryan Hyde, thank you for bringing this light into the world!!! Readers, don't forget to read her introduction to this edition!!!

I am so glad that I read this before having my 13 year old grand daughter read it!! it is totally inappropriate for a young person and I cannot believe that this novel is written for young adults having so much "sex time" out of wedlock. Thankfully this author does not get explicit however, they are clearly in and out of bed together all throughout. And in the morning when Trevor realizes that his mom and his teacher come out of the bedroom together, he asks, "Didi you stay all night?" The teacher replies, "Yes" Trevor's response to that is, "Cool!" Whatever, that's science fiction stuff!!! The story was scattered and so difficult to read and keep up with. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but I will say that I was totally disappointed with the whole story line including the stupid ending. All in all it was totally unbelievable and just plain stupid!

I watched the movie years ago and it was great! I just read the book for the first time and it was moving emotionally, and spiritually. Wow, the characters were so so believable. My life developed cynicism wants to nay say the idea that anyone: especially not a child of 12, could provoke such profound change in a broken selfish, and brutal world, yet history shows that a single individual can pass forward goodness. It's 2017, terror makes victims of the vulnerable and the innocents, greed stalks the world's economies, Godlessness is a protected status, yet this book reminds us to stop, reassess and in the suffocating darkness around each of us to lift up three candles and Pay It Forward. I will! Thank you Catherine Ryan Hyde!

How can you not like the story? Tried and true. It's a hopeful book. But it boggs down till this reader who usually doesn't want a book to be done, wanted it over. There's a new youth version out that probably bypasses some of the light sex; maybe that's better. I hope so, because the message is clear and oh so very much needed. I actually like Catherine Ryan Hyde's more recent novels better. She writes a good story and the moral is always there, but couched in love and experience and humor. She seems to love animals and her animal characters are also well drawn. Charming is what they are. Charming. But this one lasted too long.

This was required summer reading for my 9th grader. As a reading geek, we did the project together. I attempted to read the paper copy of this book aloud. It was painful due to the slang and dialects of the characters. The audio version allowed us to focus more on the story.I also purchased the dvd as a reward and teaching moment for after the project. The story is told by the diary or thoughts of the individual characters. Sometimes it is difficult to keep everything straight. The story emerges from these "eye witnesses". The story has a surprise ending. The movie is considerably different, but stand alone effective. This was well worth the time. The movie, while good, was not as good as the book. My 9th grader heartily agrees.

It had been years since I saw the movie, but it was such a great story, I wanted to read the book. I'm so glad I did! It was great to be reminded that this whole movement got started because of the creative mind of one of my newly discovered, favorite authors. What a simply brilliant concept! I loved getting to know the characters in this story even better, and with a lot more details of their thoughts and lives. Just beautifully, sensitively written. I highly recommend this book!